Iranian attacks on US bases across the Middle East have caused far more damage than the Trump administration has publicly acknowledged, and an Iranian fighter jet was able to bomb at least one US base, NBC News reported on Saturday, citing unnamed US officials.
The administration has attempted to cover up the damage to US bases in the war, and has gone as far as requesting that Planet Labs and other satellite imagery companies black out war images, making it difficult to ascertain the damage.
The NBC report said that the Pentagon has also kept the information on the damage from Congress. “No one knows anything. And it’s not for lack of asking,” a Republican congressional aide told the outlet. “We have been asking for weeks and not getting specifics, even as the Pentagon is asking for a record high budget.”
Iranian missile and drone attacks have targeted US bases in seven Middle Eastern countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the US, Iraq, Jordan, and Qatar. US officials said that an Iranian F-5 fighter jet was able to bomb the US base at Camp Buehring in Kuwait despite it having air defenses, marking the first time in many years that an enemy fixed-wing aircraft struck a US military installation.\
The US armed Iran with Northrop Grumman-made F-5 fighter jets before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and Iran has developed its own version of the aircraft, known as the HESA Kowsar.
Kuwait was also the site of a March 1 Iranian drone attack that killed six US Army Reserve soldiers and injured more than 20. The drone targeted a makeshift operations center in Port Shuaiba, and according to survivors of the attack who spoke to CBS News, the facility was unprotected despite claims from US War Secretary Pete Hegseth that the drone was able to “squirt” through air defenses.
The Pentagon has confirmed the deaths of at least 13 US soldiers and the injuries of more than 400 in the war. The bases across the region were mostly evacuated since they were so vulnerable to attack, something The New York Times previously reported. “Many of the 13 military bases in the region used by American troops are all but uninhabitable, with the ones in Kuwait, which is next door to Iran, suffering perhaps the most damage,” the Times reported on March 25.
The NBC report said that the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain “sustained serious damage” and that other US bases in the country also suffered serious damage that is likely repairable. The report also cited the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington-based think tank, which said it assessed Iran hit more than 100 targets across 11 bases, and that the repairs would cost at least $5 billion, though the number doesn’t account for some of the radars, weapons systems, and other equipment that was destroyed.
